LAU34120 Critical Perspectives on Law

 Learning Outcomes

By the end of this module, students should be able to:

• Identify and categorise political and ideological assumptions that have been subsumed into legal doctrine
• Describe and evaluate the appropriateness of grounding principles in the contemporary socio-economic context
• Differentiate the sectoral interest groups that benefit and do not benefit from the legal status quo
• Justify and defend principles with which they agree based on full evaluation of their applicability in the practical legal context
• Appraise the extent to which the existing corpus of Irish law serves its ostensible goals.

Module Content

Doctrinal approaches to law are generally based on certain assumptions about human motivations and behaviour and the structure of society. Many of these grounding assumptions are rooted heavily in particular socio-political ideologies, most commonly those of 19^th Century liberalism. Ideas about individual legal rights, justice and public policy have a strong tendency to assume a level of equality of power and opportunity that is wholly absent from the status quo in most developed economies.

The purpose of this module is to equip students to identify and critique the sacred cows of legal doctrine. By examining social context, economic realities and power relationships, the fallacies of many of the founding principles of core legal subjects will be deconstructed and evaluated. Students may ultimately conclude that these founding principles are sound or meritorious; however, whatever their conclusion, the process of critique and defence of fundamental elements of the legal order adds significantly to students’ understanding of the law.

The critique is primarily aimed at the core subjects that students will have studies during their Fresh modules. This ensures that students have sufficient background material. These subjects have also been chosen as they are the basis for the legal education of all professional lawyers in the state in that they are also the core subjects of the FE1 exams and the King’s Inns’ Diploma in Legal Studies.

Attendance at the weekly class is mandatory. 0.5% of the overall final grade will be deducted for any week missed (after the introductory week) without sufficient excuse being provided to the lecturers.